An "Astronaut" - derived from a composite of two Greek words, 'Astro' (meaning Space) and 'Naut' (meaning Criminal or Villain, from which the English words 'naughty' and 'nought' also originate) - is something space organizations launch into space to perform tedious and stupid tasks. Astronauts have a long and rich American history, due to their utter incompetence. Many people think that only the best pilots can become astronauts, but they are wrong.

Typically, astronauts are lazy, useless, stupid, homeless men. Recently, physiological tests performed by NASA researchers revealed that astronauts are commonly alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, often mentally retarded, and normally total assholes. This data was derived from space flight data collected over five decades, revealing the inability of astronauts to restrain themselves from sticking forks in electrical outlets and licking frozen poles. This is a very common issue amongst astronauts, along with piloting space ships while drunk. These astronauts seldom have any education worth mentioning; few have made it past first grade. The average IQ of all American astronauts is roughly 28. Prior to astronaut use, monkeys were used, but NASA realised that they were in fact too able (and valuable) for the job. Therefore NASA needed to find something even less competent that could still sustain mental thought process - plants and inatimate objects were thus ruled out. However, homeless drunks fit this position perfectly and they were expendable - into space if they were lucky.

Candidates were selected by searching under bridges and selecting the most drunk and dirty-looking homeless people there. Most of the selected astronauts came from Detroit. The workers at NASA decided to select these men because if something went wrong, they couldn't blame them for having professionals screw up so miserably. If there was a major catastrophe, the general American population would say "Well, of course! Look who's piloting the thing! A drunk hobo!" as opposed to "It's a shame, that stupid NASA can't even get the best pilots on the planet to operate that simple machinery properly! Those bloody fools!" Astronauts are also often subject to prejudice against them, usually by the jealous airplane pilots - although this is not always the case. Some comes from paranoid viewers of movies such as Alien and E.T, and other can be used by over-protective parents who think anything outside of their utopian society is wrong. Occasionally, they bring back some bitchin' moon rocks and totally awesome science, but only nerds care about that shit.

These prejudices are often based on statements that are not true, and are in fact ideas of Hollywood. Examples:

"They all have whiny wives and ugly children you want to blast into space with them."

While all of these things have been true on separate space missions, they certainly cannot be applied to every astronaut. However, one astronaut, an old hobo from Texas, had accomplished three of those four tasks in one mission. He defied gravity in front of many children, and then wore a space suit. Soon, his stomach was used as a fetus, which had an alien inside. The alien ending up killing the crew, except for Sigourney Weaver who managed to kill the alien and escape. The Alien now works as a lobbyist in Congress.

Astronauts have to wear and operate a series of very complicated machines in order in live and complete their missions in space. This is not good for an astronaut who has the approximate mental capacity of a shovel, for he will be more prone to messing up or breaking the equipment.

The most associated piece of equipment with astronauts are their space vehicles. Originally, astronauts used little capsules that were small and uncomfortable. These ships could be manually or remotely controlled. However, when manually controlled, it is often under the control of a drunk man, who consequently crashes the ship in some fashion. However, advances in technology have resulted in an newer, more advanced ship, called the space shuttle, but this ship is twice as hard to operate, and also three times as expensive to create. The shuttle has resulted in more crashes than the old capsules, and more money lost. NASA is considering switching back to the older models of space travel to save money.

When the astronauts are in space, they have to wear something in order to live. For this they have they have the space suit, which, luckily for NASA, is not "operated" by the astronauts. There is nothing they could really do to break it. However, some have requested that the manage to put a straw in it that is connected to a stock of vodka, but NASA designers declined their request. Neat whisky was more patriotic than 'commie vodka'.

The third moon mission could only be described as "the most colourful failure we've had."

Since NASA can't fall behind the the space race, it must conduct several missions that have actual objectives for the astronauts to carry out. The most common missions are orbiting the earth to take pictures and going to the moon. However, the astronauts are often too drunk or stoned to actually carry out the given task. Take for example, Moon Mission Three. Three astronauts were sent to the moon to collect rock sample for research. However, the moon was too gray and bland in appearance for them. Luckily, one had brought along LSD to liven up the experience. All three soon become so stoned that none could operate the ship properly. The pilot, who was stoned and drunk, ended up crashing the ship, killing all three astronauts. Nobody cared about the astronauts, but "The ship was so pretty! It's a shame it went to waste."

Moon Mission Three was one of the "Disastrous Five", a group of six missions that all resulted in some sort of failure. The first mission, Earth Mission One, was a mission designed to have the astronauts orbit Earth several times and take pictures. However, one of the astronauts felt hot and opened a window to cool things off. When he did, all three were sucked out the open window to their deaths. The ship was then remotely piloted to a landing back on Earth. This pleased all of the NASA staff members because they returned the expensive ship safely.

The second of the disastrous five, called Moon Mission Two, was a mission to the moon. The three astronauts managed to fly the equipment all the way to the moon. However, due to their incompetence, they crashed on the moon and the ship exploded. Nobody cared that three men had died, instead, they were concerned with all the money they had lost in the space ship.

Your ship's onboard computer has been infected by a pinko-pacifist virus.

Then mission three took place, and still the NASA officials took no steps to prevent the astronauts from smuggling drugs or booze on the ships. Then Earth Mission Four was initiated. However, this time instead of somehow dying, the homeless astronauts sat there drunk, making the people on Earth remotely pilot them back to Earth. These same men were sent on the next trip, this time to the moon, becuase they didn't die in the previous mission. They were sent to collect rock samples, but two of the three passed out before they landed. The other one, who was high, thought taking off his helmet would be a good idea. He died due to suffocation. When the others woke up, they were unable to pilot the ship correctly, which caused them to crash the ship.

After the series of disastrous missions, NASA began to realize that the only reason why the were having catastrophic failures was because they had these homeless alcoholics as the pilots. One NASA staff member thought if they got competent pilots there would be very few problems. However, the NASA executives believed it was best to stay with the homeless people, and the worker who brought up the suggestion was promptly fired.

Soon after the five missions, NASA decided to give their homeless astronauts a good amount of training before rocketing them into space again with an expensive ship. They told them how to operate the machinery, and if they needed any help, to drop them a line back on Earth. However, all of the astronauts were drunk to even know what was going on, and before they even got to the moon they had destroyed the ship. This was the sixth mission of the "Disastrous Five". It was called Disastrous Five due to the fact that they were given some training before the sixth trip, and was therefore removed from the list of unsuccessful trips. However, everyone besides NASA calls it a failure of a mission, regardless of training or not. From that point on NASA decided to step up their game with the astronauts.

Today's astronauts scuba dive in their underpants as part of NASA's new training program. Beware of jagged coral reefs fellas!

After the six horrible space missions, NASA officials decided it was time to step things up. They confiscated all of the new recruits' drugs and alcohol, and dedicded to give them some proper training. To do so, they created a program called Training Astronauts For Space, or TAFS. In TAFS, NASA sent the astronauts to work in simulators and to complete fake missions. They also set them to a camp that would increase their physical ability.

However, to the disappointment of NASA, half of these people were too stoned to care, and merely went back to their homes beneath bridges. Also, the others who stayed were in fact retarded, crippled, or somehow drunk, despite the people taking away their beer. The staff members who were supposed to train the recruits still went on making pathetic attempts at somehow increasing the overall ability of these people by very minute levels. None could seem to succeed, and some trainers, so stressed and annoyed by their trainees, were driven to the point of suicide, which caused the training program to be shut down completely.

From that point on, NASA completely abandoned TAFS and went back to the old plan of putting them in the ship and telling them to "Have a fun ride." This worked out better than having them trained, mainly because it resulted in fewer deaths of the staff.

Today astronauts are still homeless drunks. They have failed in every single space mission, making America look like it is pathetic, unlike countries such as Russia and space programs such as AIDS. NASA still selects these individuals, and in doing so are lowering the population of homeless people. This pleases the American people more than discovering useful things in space. NASA, despite its embarrassing reputation, still persists at having one successful space mission and is striving toward getting some more intelligent astronauts that are still homeless.